Flint Foxclaw's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Flint followed the tracks east through wet leaves. Paw became hoof became boot, then only boot, pressed deep and bold. The beast was not hiding now. It wanted him to come. He knew it, and he went anyway. The fire was still burning when he found it. Stones ringed the pit in a careful circle, embers red beneath the ash. At the center sat a flat black flint, scorched but unbroken, marked with a double helix cut clean into its face. He had seen that mark before. He pulled his worn track journal from his satchel and held it open beside the stone. The same symbol stared back from the cover, charcoal-dark and old. His hands went cold. He had carried that book for nine years. He set it down by the fire and stood very still. Past the trees, something glowed. Soft light, low to the ground, warm as banked coals. He walked toward it. A ring of stones waited in a small clearing, each carved with an animal and lit from within. Fox. Wolf. Hare. Owl. They pulsed gently, like breathing. Flint stepped to the edge of the circle and understood, finally, what the beast had been doing. It was not running. It was inviting. And the trap he had come to set was already built — only he was standing inside it.